Do Not Enter Signs Lie
by tiswillard
Summary: Assume the war took a wrong turn, Voldemort won, and the world is falling to pieces-- both muggle and magical. Blast of the past, stuck in the future, only one person can save the world.
1. These Nightmares

A/N: For those who read and loved/hated BCD, this is a completely different story. Yes, yes, yes it is. This is an idea I've been messing around with for over a year and a half, almost two years now. Only now I wrote a good first chapter. In this chapter, I own most everything. Unless you want to say I don't know own Chicago, becaue I don't. Thanks to Just Jaclyn for pushing me to write it. Dar's influenced by Just Jaclyn. Not a lot of detail in this, but you'll understand in the next chapter. Anyway, this story will be LONGGGG. D

* * *

Chapter 1: These Nightmares

**Chicago, Illinois**

**August 2008**

_"I've got this feeling there's someone's following us," Evie said under her breath. She'd been saying the same words all her life, and her friends had coincidentally found them rather irritating. Evie was by default a paranoid person, but something about bike paths past curfew seemed to make the girl even more jittery. It was a wonder that Evie and Dar even got along, since they were such complete opposites at times. For example, Evie was extremely indecisive-- unless, of course, it came to being paranoid. If she heard a noise, it was immediately to be considered a serial killer clown who wanted to cut her into little pieces and put her into a pie that it would later throw into another clown's face. Dar, on the other hand, was extremely stubborn and determined, and she usually stood by her first impression. Evie had this idea that she was going to lead this big exciting life, which probably led to her constant idea that she just had to look behind her shoulder at every possible moment. She didn't want anything sneaking up behind her and catching her by surprise, if it could interfere with her possible big exciting future life. On the other hand, Dar was much more conventional and understood that not everyone was going to live their life as exciting as Mr. and Mrs. Smith, or however Evie imagined her life to be. So Dar had no worries, or at least pretended like she didn't. She did exactly what she wanted, and no one could change that for her. If opportunity lingered in the air, Dar would obligingly be the first one to approach it. Evie would have to study it and make sure that it couldn't ruin her reputation for whatever the future may hold for her._

_"You always think something's following us, Evelia," Dar said, a twinge of irritation ornamenting her short phrase. Evie lost no time in pushing Dar to the side. If the girls had anything in common, it was most definitely their dislike towards their names. Evelia Maegan Roderick and Luanna Helen Darrell were not particularly the best names a girl could ask for. While their parents' obsession with unique names was both respectable and paved with good intentions, they must have not thought about how it would make their daughter's miserable in the future. And it did make them miserable, but at least it was better than saying that their name was on the most popular baby name list when they were born._

_While the girls were never prepared to acquiesce into their names that they were so convinced did not suit them, they had to find nicknames. 'Evelia', a name easier to drag a nickname out of when placed next to 'Luanna', was soon changed to Evie. However, Evie's mother still believed that calling the girl 'Evelia' was requisite. No matter how much Evie loved her mother, her 'requisite name-calling' was not among her favorite things about the woman, and she thus had to be careful as to dodge the impulse to slap her mom upon these instances of 'requisite name-calling'. On the other hand, a certain Kimberly Darrell, mother of Luanna, was much more understanding of Dar's dislike towards her name. Seeing as the only nicknames anyone could get out of Luanna were Lu and Anna (neither of which were highly appreciated), they searched for a nickname in Dar's surname. Darrell was out of the picture, seeing as Darrell was actually a boy's name. After long debating and both distressful and sleepless nights (honestly, Dar really did feel strongly about her name), Dar was settled upon._

_"And you're undoubtedly a bitch, Luanna Helen," Evie laughed, thinking she had gotten the girl back. Of course, disputes (if they could even be considered that) between Evie and Dar were not settled just like that. Dar, who had pretended as if she had really been hurt by Evie, had fallen behind about five feet before she scrambled forward, pulling on Evie's dark hair. Unfortunately, sensitive scalps were a bitch to have, as Evie did, and said 'dispute' soon turned into a short laughing fest, after a few heated 'Fuck you!'s had been thrown back and forth._

_The wind was still and the trees rustled. Stopping dead in her tracks, Dar failed to even notice that Evie had stopped walking. After beginning to tell a story about some rumour she had heard recently about some people who had apparently been found fucking behind the movie theater, she finally noticed Evie had stopped walking. Dar had turned, presumably, to gesture or demonstrate something (wouldn't that have been fun to have seen?), and noticed that Evie had stopped walking. Turning her head farther behind her until she finally saw Evie frozen in fear, staring at a nearby tree. "For such a big dreamer about when it comes to your 'big exciting future', you sure do turn into a fucking pussy when you hear an unwanted sound," Dar mumbled to herself, turning on her heel to walk back to her friend. "What is it, dead body in the river?"_

_"You're just morbid enough to be excited by that sort of thing," Evie said, rolling her eyes. One just had to mention the word 'dead' or 'corpse' with the name of an animal or a person following it to get Dar investigating. "Anyway, there is no river over here."_

_"My point exactly, Evie," Dar muttered, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, you'd be the kind of person I'd expect to just imagine one there-- both the river and the dead body. But anyway, if it's the trees, it's probably just the wind. I know you'd love to believe it was some sort sort of epic breakthrough in... apparitions, or whatever that ghost-shit it is you believe in, but seriously. It's not."_

_"You believe in it too, numbnuts," Evie pointed out. Evie just apparently believed in it a little more than Dar did. "Anyway, there is no wind. It's pretty wind-less here in the windy city, if you haven't noticed. At least over here, at this time of night it is. Or at least it is right now. Point is, there is no wind, so it wasn't the wind."_

_"Then it was an animal," Dar said, looking at her friend. Evie finally took her eyes off of the tree and stared at her friend, obviously not believing that it was an animal. "Fuck! You know, I don't understand why you-- we-- you--"_

_"'No animal." Evie looked convinced that there was something more to it._

_"Fine! What-- do you want me to go look?" Dar asked, obviously just wanting to get this over with. Evie, being her indirect self, much to the opposing rather bold and down-to-the-point Dar, Evie cocked her head to the right and tried to look as if she was thinking. Rolling her eyes once again, Dar gave up. She walked over to the tree, violently pulled away the branches in order so she could see the nonexistent thing that had caused the tree to move. "See--"_

_Dar's voice had more or less died, rather than asked a question, and even faded was pushing it. Evie was standing at an angle from which she couldn't see past Dar, to see whatever the girl was staring at. Cautiously, Evie shuffled towards her friend and stood behind the girl, prepared for the worst of things to be there. Dar wasn't exactly the easiest person to scare in the world. Evie could see just enough so she could recognize what it was, that had made the noise. Or rather, whoever or whatever had dragged it there had made the noise._

_"It's--" Dar began._

_"Yea, I see that."_


	2. Mommy

A/N: I'm not sure if this is worth the effort, because in all honesty _it is _a Harry Potter fan fiction. I mean, what, ten minutes after I update it, it's off the first page of the Harry Potter section? Very few people will get to read it. That and it doesn't get all Harry Potter on your ass right at the very beginning. So I guess I'll just have to hope the people who read my Hanhall fics will come read this and cheer me on about it. Um, the Harry Potter fandom should become apparent by the forth chapter, far as I see it. In the end, I am generally proud of the quality that is coming out of my writing when I write this story. So above all, please note that.

* * *

Chapter Two: Mommy

**Chicago, Illinois**

**August 2008**

_Mommy..._

Evie thought it. It wasn't a dream. She was awake. She didn't say it. She just thought it. But she knew that was who was beneath the tree, even if it had been a dream. It was over. It didn't even surprise her anymore-- the dream, of course. Seeing her mom's vividly lifeless body. How's that for an oxymoron? No, but somehow she'd had the dream so many times. She'd seen that nightmare twenty-six too many times. She'd lived that nightmatre one too many times. The only differences between it happening in real life and in her dream was that in real life, it did turn out to be an animal. In the dream it was her mom.

She could see her mom now, clear as day. Pale, with a tint of blue hinting her regularly tan skin. Twigs stuck to the back of her lime green shirt with a v-neck from being dragged across the forest floor. Even when it was a dream-- a dream that Evie was no longer having-- Evie could imagine the limp feeling of her mother's hand in her own. She could imagine the blood that poured from her nose, as if a rock had been hit against it. Bruises decorated her arms in shades of black and blue. Her short hair was tousled; parts of it were ripped out. The initial 'sighting' of her mother's 'dead' body had been shocking. Evie had been sprinting out of her room before she was even thinking. Before she even would have thought to go check on her mother. Hell, for all Evie knew, she was checking on her mother before she was even awake. Evie _or_ her mother.

She had held her slowly waking mother in her arms for about half an hour, crying softly. The thought of losing her last family member, even if none of the others had been lost to death, it was still too much. Her mom hadn't asked what the crying or the holding had been about. Evie's mother learned not to ask a long time ago, when it became apparent that Evie wasn't going to answer questions, no matter how serious it obviously was. Her mother (or anyone else, for that matter) could beg and beg for however long she (or he, considering we're bringing other people into this situation) wanted. Evie had never been one to talk about how she felt or what was happening in her life, whether or not it was bothering her. Even very rarely with Dar, which was sort of complicated, seeing as Dar could see through almost anything.

The point was, Evie's mother was alive. Everyone else in the world could die; Evie didn't really give a fuck. Who mattered was her mom. Evie herself could die; Evie didn't care. Her mom, on the other hand, was her hero; her mom was invincible. Evie was a teenager, but she wasn't going to leave her mom in the dust and just stop talking to her because she was a fifteen year old girl. That was stupid. That was _juvenile._

Now maybe there were a lot of people in the world who considered Evie a quote-on-quote 'juvenile delinquent'. She wasn't perfect. She'd done drugs-- she didn't do drugs-- not on a regular basis, anyway. Sure, someone offers her cocaine at a good price, Evie was going to buy it; she wasn't _stupid_. But she wasn't going to go out of her way to get it. She'd never been addicted to anything in her life; she didn't have the attention span. She had to try to get addicted or obsessed with things. Cocaine wasn't on her list of to-get-obsessed-withs. She did drink, more obsessively than she did drugs. She'd been caught drinking, much opposed to her drug habit (if you could even call it that), and it was more an official law figure that caught her than it was her own mother. But her mother sort of knew anyway. Her mother was cool like that. Spray paint, school shootings, all the normal stuff-- it was a part of Evie's life. Evie's (quote-on-quote) 'juvenile delinquent' life. Well, on second thought, spray paint and school shootings were only _sort_ of normal. In big cities like Chicago. Good thing Evie lived there. Evie supposed it wasn't exactly that normal to be that much of a juvenile delinquent either (no matter what the city), but that didn't mean she was going to destroy her relationship with her mother over it.

_Mommy..._

Somehow, she'd managed to take control of her dream-world. That didn't make much sense to her, but somehow she'd done it. At least, sort of done it. Evie had managed to pull herself out of the dream when she didn't want to be there. Now, usually, you didn't go through nightmares until you see the worst-of-the-worst parts. Dreams where you were falling? Most everybody has them, though not necessarily in the literal 'falling' sense. But the point was, you rarely were still dreaming when you landed and killed yourself. No one stayed asleep that long; fear was too dominant.

But Evie had been staying asleep long enough to see her mom dead, albeit she had been more terrified than she ever had been of falling. Evie shivered, even under the warmth of her covers. Even in the warmth of the late summer. But, eventually, Evie had managed to tell her dream 'You know what? Fuck you! I don't enjoy seeing my mother's dead body every night. Just stop.'

The unsettling part about it, was it had. It had stopped. Stopped at the exact moment where she recognized her mother for who she really was in the dream. She still saw the rest of it, but she kept waking up five minutes earlier than she had been when she first had the dream.

_Ring, ring, ring, ring..._

_Mommy?_


	3. Silent Treatment

This is where everyone gasps because this story has finally mentioned Harry Potter. Don't worry; unless you have insane mental abilities, you so far have no fucking idea what's about to go down here. Or at least, I hope I'm not that predictable. I promise you, the real Harry Potter part of this story will come in next chapter, albeit I'm not sure whether or not you'll be able to tell that's what it is. So I'm not making any super-big promises until the fifth chapter.

* * *

Chapter Three: Silent Treatment

**Chicago, Illinois  
August 2008**

"Are you absolutely sure you're okay, Evie?" Dar asked for about the millionth time that morning. It might have been the dream, but that had never really gotten to Evie, except for the first night. Evie just supposed it was that they were, in fact, walking on the same exact bike path where it had originally happened. Well, it hadn't really actually happened, since what happened in real life hadn't happened in the dream and vice versa. That might have been it, but Evie had no idea. She just didn't feel good either. She actually usually felt excited on the first day of school, which was funny, since school always ended up to leading to disappointed faces, failed friendships, barely passing grades, and so-forth. But something about the first, day and seeing all the new faces; the new faces who might for a moment be smiling. Those faces in just one moment would be among those disappointed for their failing friendships and barely passing grades. School was hell, no matter who the fuck you were, and most especially for Evie. Except for the first day, except for _this _first day.

"I would be better, maybe," Evie said, playing with the tank top that over-lapped over her skinny jeans. Oh, skinny jeans. The joy of life. She found herself positioning the shirt on an angle, because it was really that important that people saw her belt, one moment from one side, one moment from the other. Dar had spent the last few minutes swatting at her hand, trying to get her to just decide what the hell she wanted to do with her shirt. Evie finally just pulled her tank top down over her pants, her shirt farther over her tank top, and then felt the need to smoothen out her zip-up hoodie that really served more as a safety blanket than anything else. It had too many holes in it to keep her warm, and it was obviously not a fashion statement, unless Evie had woken up, deciding that she wanted to look like a hobo. Had that been the case, fine. But no, Evie was just famous for wearing the dirty black-and-white striped zip-up hoodie whenever something was wrong. Which was probably why Dar was so strictly insisting that there _was_ something wrong in Evie's life that day. "You know, if you would just shut up and let me breathe."

"In which case, I'm giving you plenty of room to breathe," Dar insisted, re-adjusting the strap on her backpack. Although, it didn't really matter. Dar had this thing where she liked to have her straps pulled out as far as she could. Seeing as they were already adjusted that way, Evie couldn't find any reason for what Dar was doing. Evie instinctively reached out and swatted at Dar's hand. If Evie wasn't allowed to play with her shirt, Dar wouldn't be allowed to play with her back pack straps. Dar, on the other hand, had her own plans on her agenda, all of which consisted with playing with her backpack strap. She simply ignored Evie's hands. "Just tell me, because I know something's bothering you. You're wearing _that _thing on the first day of school."

"Excuse me, Dar, but _this _thing happens to be mine and I can wear it whenever I'd like to," Evie claimed, kicking a rock out of her path. Dar knew her too well, something that a best friend should do, but it annoyed Evie on occasions. She tended to have mood swings; one moment she wanted someone to know her, the next moment she wants them out of her life. In the long run, of course, she wanted Dar there. But there were still those moments where she was annoying (of course, Evie couldn't just go and say that she didn't have her own moments where she was utterly annoying). "And there is something wrong, now that you bring it up. But why do I have to talk about it?"

"Because I said so," Dar claimed. "And if you don't tell me, I plan to tell some guy that you hate with all your being that you like him. I also plan to notify the rest of the school of it, and for the rest of your life, you will be forever scarred. You'll never forgive me, but I'll think it's the funniest fucking thing that ever happened to either of us."

"Just some guy?" Evie asked, with her eyebrows raised. "Some threat, Dar. I mean, it is good. Or, would be good. You know, if you had a guy picked out."

"Not _just_ some guy," Dar said, rolling her eyes. "Some guy that you hate." Apparently, this was supposed to terrify Evie out of her wits or something of the same sort. Evie just smiled and patted her friend on the head. Sure, it was a guy that Evie would have hated, but that still meant that it was _just _some guy. The truth was, most guys were _just some guy_ to Evie. There was no one in particular that she liked, no one in particular that she hated. Sure, she had guy friends, but none of them were as close as, say, Dar was. "So are you going to tell me or not?"

"I don't know, do you want to hear about it?" Evie asked, her eye on Dar. She was taking joy out of being annoying.

"No," Dar claimed, her tone dripping with sarcasm. Yea, sure. "Of course I want to hear what the fuck is bothering you, Evie. Fess up."

"A'ight," Evie hesitated, staring at the ground. She began to nervously play with her tank top once more. This time, Dar didn't try to stop her. "You remember when we were walking down _this path,_ earlier this month? Because we felt like bad-asses and felt the need to break curfew? Well, I keep having this nightmare about that one time when we heard the leaves rustling, and there was the animal in the tree. Only difference is that in the dream, it's actually my mom. Not an animal."

"Define the meaning of 'keeping having this dream'," Dar said, picking at a neon green string that somehow had ended up on her faded jeans.

"Twenty-six times in a row, Dar," Evie said, turning to Dar as if this had to be so dramatic. Well, it kind of did, actually. In some sort of weird way, it did require the amount of dramatization Evie was giving it, but at the same time, _nothing _ever needed that much dramatization. Except for if it was on Broadway or in a movie. But this was real life; this wasn't a movie... was it?

"So, do you two _ever_ slow down!?" Her voice was loud and demanding. Her stance was far below either of Dar or Evie's, although that was normal for most girls. To be shorter than Dar and Evie, of course, who were somewhat abnormally tall. This was a different sort of 'abnormally tall' person, though. Haleigh Breckinridge, friend for forever of both Evie and Dar, could honestly never get as close to Evie or Dar as Evie and Dar could get to each other. Sure, they were all friends int he long run, but Haleigh had never quite made it for the cut for 'super-super-good-friends'. But Evie and Dar had learned to tolerate her when they didn't want her around. Yes, they were close friends, but Evie would never even dream about telling Haleigh what she had just told Dar.

"Sorry, no," Dar said, not tearing her eyes away from Evie, who was looking uncomfortably at the ground. "We were too excited about school." Dar's voice was surrounded in part venom, part sarcasm. Evie realized that she should have known that Dar would have been angry; she had a way of overreacting when Evie didn't tell her something like that the second it happened. Unfortunately for Evie, she usually hated knowing that people knew her secreis. Even if it was Dar. "How long have you been following us?"

"Long enough to finish a Harry Potter book," Haleigh replied dryly, stepping next to Evie. Ah, the Harry Potter geek of the group of friends. There was always one in each group. Dar, for some reason, hated Harry Potter and all of it's mainstream popularity. Evie had never really minded Harry Potter, but she'd just never gotten too far into the story. Besides, Haleigh told Evie all she would ever need to know about Harry Potter and... the wonders of how amazing sexy she though Draco Malfoy was.

"Well, sorry about that, Hales," Dar said loudly, looking away from Evie, whose hands were now buried deeply inside of her pockets. She stared at the hot asphalt that made the road of bike path, contemplating the ways that she could make Dar forgive her, since she was so obviously mad. Overreacting was more the word, but using that word would always make Dar blow up twice as loud. Well, maybe this time, Evie wouldn't care. Maybe she'd just let Dar overreact. She'd crawl back to her in the end of it, anyway. In the meantime, she'd just ignore the existence of her friend.

"Ah, it's fine. I think I sort of needed the exercise anyway," Haleigh said, shrugging. She snapped in front of Evie's face, who was still looking at the ground. "Yo, Evie. You with us?"

"Yeah," Evie responded, slowly looking up. She made a point of avoiding eye contact with Dar, still standing firmly next to Haleigh. Oh boy, this would be interesting. There were never fights between Evie and Dar where both were set on not talking to each other. This could be interesting; if only Haleigh had been fore-warned of the fight that was about to rage.


	4. Do Not Enter

A/N: It's been a while hasn't it, readers-who-don't-exist-because-up-until-now-this-story-had-nothing-to-do-with-Harry-Potter? That's right. You just totally read that over-hyphenated phrase correctly. Finally, Harry Potter. Only not really, because the fact that it's in Hogwarts (or the Forbidden Forest, whatever) is all that's really mentioned. Chapter five will finally enter the wonderful world of Harry Potter, sort of. Be excited.

Chapter Four: Do Not Enter

**Chicago, Illinois**

**August, 2008**

Oh boy. School and being there early. The first day was the only day that Evie had ever made an attempt to get there early, of course. It was the same thing this year, with the only difference being that she was not currently talking to Dar. This year, being to school early was actually feeling rather painful, as much as she had hated to admit it. Had she been talking to Dar, she wouldn't have currently been walking around the school as aimlessly as she was. As a matter of fact, she probably would have actually been outside, trying to get the Goddamned vending machine to work.

Oh, the vending machine. Infamous throughout the whole school for being among the many electronics that never worked, along with the lap tops, overhead projectors, and even the lights sometimes. The vending machine, though. It was probably responsible for all of Evie's popularity, having her semi-annual boxing matches with the stupid machine every time it refused to give her her daily dose of Mountain Dew-- which was just about every other day, and it liked the first day to always be the first day of school. She couldn't function without the stupid soda, and her mom refused to let her touch anything that involved caffeine until noon. But the school didn't know that. Even if they did, they couldn't stop her from drinking it. They allowed it on campus, and the school sure as hell had never received a doctor's note ordering them to keep her from drinking soda. Besides, what were they going to do, restrain her in inside of the gym and throw dodgeballs at her until she promised never to touch soda again? Hell, even if they did decide to do that (which Evie was pretty sure could be considered child abuse, nonetheless), Evie doubted she would have been able to stay away from the soda, anyway.

Quite honestly, she was unfortunately addicted. And quite unfortunately, she honestly did not have any on her at the moment.

She had dragged herself to the bathroom, with her backpack sagging off of her back. She had dropped it in the corner before preparing herself for an intense study-yourself-in-the-mirror session, something that she only did when she was really desperate for something to do. Evie had never been the type of person who took pride out of looking at herself in the mirror, believe it or not. Then again, that should be expected from someone who didn't have very high self-esteem in the way she looked.

Well, Goddamn, she did look like something was bothering her. It must have not just been the hoodie. Her eyes, which were today actually lacking the usually heavy-ish (not too heavy, but heavier than should be worn) eye liner, still looked like she actually was wearing it. After rubbing her eyes with water-soaked hands for a few minutes, Evie recognized that it was seriously only going to make her look like she had been beaten up, hence she had decided to cry in a corner. Well, she hadn't been beaten up and she hadn't been crying, so she wasn't going to stand for that. Frustrated, she wiped off her face with a dry-ish paper towel. She was determined to look presentable for the day, although there was no specific reason as to what she was doing it for.

It wasn't like she looked that bad. Actually, she looked pretty normal. Her green eyes were too big, her lips to thin, her nose slightly off-center, seeing as she had been hit in the face with a softball when she used to play in the second grade. Her arms were too fat, her legs were too skinny, and the rest of her was just normal. Her hair was long; she realized she wanted to cut her hair. Kind of short, but she wasn't exactly sure. She had these Goddamn-I-have-to-cut-my-hair impulses quite often, actually. It had become routine, now that she thought about it. Her hair was a dark brown, commonly mistaken for black, but it wasn't that intense. Or at least, that's not what Evie thought. Her hair was okay, actually. It was straight, but not _too_ straight, and she liked it that way. Actually, her hair was among one of her favorite features. But that was about it. She didn't like too much else about her. It was either to normal or had to many flaws, more falling under the category of the latter.

What she really needed to stop doing was looking at herself in the mirror. To admire your flaws, in no matter what way, did not do good for anyone's self-esteem, and Evie's especially. Mostly because she had very little in the first place. Biting her lip for a moment, Evie took one last look at herself in the mirror. She almost sprinted to the corner of the bathroom, where she threw her backpack over her shoulder. Taking one last look at the bathroom, as if it was some old friend she wouldn't see for years, she pushed through the door with her back. God, she had some strange quirks.

She avoided everyone in the hallway. It didn't really matter though, since everyone seemed to be avoiding her too. That might have been because there were only a few people yet walking down the hallway, though. Evie couldn't be too sure, actually. All she knew was it felt like the world was avoiding her, in spite of the fact the only reason they might have had to be doing that was because she was in a fight with her best friend. Who knew about it, anyway?

There she was; there was Luanna Darrell. Alone and ready to kill, specifically number one on that list was Evelia Roderick herself. Damn, talk about irony-- oh fuck, who was kidding her? Evie realized she needed to get out of Dar's view _pronto_, if she actually wanted to live through the first day of her Sophomore year. God, why did Dar have to be so... _weird_ about the sort of things? Tightening her grip on the right strap on her backpack, Evie peeled eyes for the first place she could hide. And, lo and behold, there it was. An empty classroom, and although it had a sign that said 'Do Not Enter' taped onto it, it was as good of place as any to hide. Especially when it came to getting away from Dar, like she kind of actually needed to do at the moment. Pushing it open, Evie stepped through the doorway. She didn't need to worry about closing that door; it was doing that automatically.

**The Forbidden Forest, Hogwarts**

**August, 1974**

"Fuck-- Goddamnit!" Evie swore, as she stepped on her ankle at a bad angle. Falling to the ground, she felt around for a wall to drag herself up on. There were only twigs and leaves. Her eyes finally noticed the light glaring into her eyes, and she put her hand over her eyes to block out the glare. Yea, some out-of-bounds classroom. "Alright, this is hilarious," Evie said seriously, to herself and only herself. "Now just let me out." The command was to whatever imaginary force there may have been around her. Unfortunately, that imaginary force obviously did not exist. She swung around, ready to see a door poorly camouflaged to the forest-like-scenery that surrounded her. Well, whoever the hell designed this room sure had a great talent for camouflage. That or she wasn't in the out-of-bounds classrom anymore.


	5. Exhausted

A/N: I actually suffered some writer's block near the end of writing this chapter. When I finally settled into how I ended this chapter, I was far more please with it than I would have expected. I'm sorry if it seems a little confusing right now, but that's sort of the point. Eventually, you'll understand what's happening, although I don't know how long that will be just yet.

* * *

**The Forbidden Forest, Hogwarts**

**August, 1974**

The setting sun-- however that had gotten there-- was among the greatest problems Evie was facing at that exact moment. Had it not been for the blinding light it produced to later shine in her eyes, she might have been able to figure out what the hell was going on. As luck would have it, of course, she was stuck squinting into the sun, trying to make sense of the poorly cared for trees that surrounded her. Of course, they weren't real trees. They _couldn't _be real trees. This was just a sick joke someone had decided to pull on anyone who might have stumbled into this classroom, and eventually someone would come and get her, laughing at her the whole way. Ha, ha; real funny.

In the meantime, Evie promised herself that she wouldn't go crazy. No, she was actually going to just lay here, where she had collapsed in a pile of (real or fake? she couldn't tell) leaves. At least until she could see, that was-- that sun was shining far too bright in her eyes for her to even begin to think of an escape plan. Then again, 'escape plan' was sort of like a exaggeration. She wasn't really in any life-threatening situation, and she sure wasn't going to die here-- unless no one ever came and got her, or there was some sort of dangerous animal waiting for her. But until then, that wasn't a possibility because that obviously wasn't going to happen... right?

Wrong.

"Said you'd be here," a low voice grumbled. From which direction it was hard to tell, though Evie was sure it must have been close by. She'd heard the voice far too clearly for it to be any length too far away. Of course, the idea of someone else being in here without her realizing it freaked Evie out a little. Cringing, she tensed up and hoped that she had imagined the voice, or it was talking to someone else-- which was probably worse, now that Evie contemplated the idea. Evie shut her eyes tight, waiting for a minute to open her eyes. A large black figure was blocking the sunlight, and Evie couldn't help but let out a high-pitched scream. This was not what she had been expecting. "Shut up! Now whutcher name?"

"What's my name?" Evie asked, self conscious of the fact that her voice was quivering and sounded smaller than usual. She watched the silhouette above her intently, thinking she'd seen a nod. "E-evie. Evie Roderick."

"You mean Evelia?" The figure asked, standing straight up.

"Evie," she corrected him-- at least, Evie _hoped_ it was a man. "Call me Evie."

"A'right," the figure said. "I think I understan'. Anyways, you, uh, needa come with me?" It was more of a question than it was a statement, which made Evie wonder if this man-- figure was possibly just as nervous as she was herself. She couldn't tell whether or not this made her feel better about everything. She opened her mouth to speak, but her throat double-clutched and she was unable to say anything. The figure kept staring at her (or at least she thought it was), presumably waiting for her stand up and follow suit. Evie searched desperately for a reason to not listen to this person-- _never trust strangers,_ the words rang in her head as if she had been in Kindergarden just yesterday.

"Where are we going?" Evie asked the figure stubbornly.

"The castle, 'course!" The figure said, rather loudly. Evie furrowed her eyebrows. _Castle?_ Yeah, some pretty awesome out-of-bounds classroom, don't you think? The figure stared at the unresponsive Evie for a moment, who seemed to definitely not like the idea of following him... somewhere, into a _castle._ "A'right, Ms. Roderick. Now yuh gots two choices-- yuh can continue tah lay there, in which case I'mma pick you up and yer gunna end up in the castle anyway, or yer gonna get up on yer feet and walk there."

"Don't touch me," Evie said automatically, standing up. The figure, who was now identified as some sort of very-large man smiled triumphantly. Why? Evie had no clue. "I'll follow you to this... _castle."_

**Dumbledore's Office, Hogwarts**

**August, 1974**

The problem with all of this, at least to Evie, was that there actually ended up being a castle. Not just a small castle, it was a large, honest-to-God castle-- at this point she had come to realize that she most definitely was not in a classroom anymore. Not any classroom, out-of-bounds or in use. Maybe she was dreaming, on the other hand, although her previous dreams would not expect her to be dreaming about a large castle, unless her mother's dead body was thrown out in front of her within a few minutes. Fortunately, this did not seem like the type of place where Evie would expect that sort of thing to happen.

According to the man who had found her in the forest, whose name was apparently Hagrid, Evie was waiting for a man she couldn't remember the name of, even though she'd just been told his name. Oh well, whatever. All she knew was that this whole scenario was causing a great deal of déjà vu-- and she didn't necessarily like it. Hence, she had pushed herself as far as she could into the back of the large lounging chair that she sat in, though it looked rather out-of-place, in the middle of this office. She closed her eyes, trying to convince herself that when she opened her eyes, Dar would be standing there. Sure, Dar would be ready to kill her, but at least it would be better than sitting here, wherever the hell _this _was.

"I see you finally got here." Unfortunately, this was note Dar's voice, and it was far from the diabolical tone Evie had expected. As a matter of fact, it was light, calm, maybe even caring. That's probably what surprised her so much, hence the instant opening of her eyes.

"Got where?" Evie asked, intentions to sound angry or something similar. Of course, her voice just sounded small and scared. Damn.

"Here. Hogwarts," the man repeated. Evie looked up at his worn face, wondering why this whole thing was causing so much déjà vu.

"Why's that sound familiar?" Evie asked.

"Think about it," the older man said. There was only one flaw in his plan-- she already was thinking about it. _Well, think harder... _The voice inside of her head was unmistakable, so Evie did just that. Slowly it came to her, and she couldn't help the ever-changing expression on her face. "Do you understand?"

"No, no I don't," Evie said, leaning her right elbow on to the arm of the chair, and nervously sucking on her thumb-- a habit she had never quite rid herself of. "I thought this place wasn't real. Harry Potter, I thought it was a fictional book."

"Most people do," the man said, "because it hasn't even come out yet. Where you come from, yes. Where we are right now? No. But even where you come from, more people think it's fiction. It's really confusing, and I'll explain when I think you'll be able to understand better."

Evie stared at the man, unsure of what to do. "What?"

"Exactly," the man said, looking at her with a twinkle in his eye. "Think of it this way; you're just here, there was no book. Okay? Well, actually, being as it's 1974, there is no book yet. So there is never going to be a book. You're just going to come here, and be a fifth year student at Hogwarts."

"What?" Evie repeated, not following any of this.

"You'll understand sooner or later," the man said. "Now's not the time to explain. You've got to be tired."

Evie stared at the old man in wonder, suddenly coming to the realization that she was, in fact, exhausted. And she had no idea why. A little over ten minutes ago, she was perfectly awake. She was also prepared to tell this man, but her mind deceived her and she automatically yawned. No point in lying to him now.

"Actually," she said, emitting another yawn, "you're right." Without another word, Evie fell into a deep, deep sleep.


	6. Prefects

A/N: Randomly long chapter, I know. I don't know why, exactly. But have fun with this. Because _finally_ Harry Potter (well, sort of) has showed up. Anyway, I'm genuinely proud of this chapter. Will people start reviewing now? Please?

* * *

**Girl's Fifth Year Gryffindor Dormitory, Hogwarts**

**September, 1974**

There was nothing Evie was sure of. Well, she was sure of a few things. A few incoherent (so to speak) things, that was. First of all, she was at Hogwarts. Second of all, it was 1974. Third of all, there was no way in hell that she was going to get home-- time-wise, country-wise, _anything_. Fourth of all, she was going to be forced to attend Hogwarts as a fifth year student in spite of the fact she had never had any 'magic education' ever before in her life-- she had been advised to use her head and her instincts. Fifth of all, no one seemed to be offering her any explanation to why she had been here for the past few days or why she was going to be here for any of the following.

Evie had been placed into a Gryffindor common room. If she remembered watching the movies correctly, there was supposed to be a hat that did this kind of stuff. Choosing which house she was in, of course. But there had been no hat that had made the decision. She had just been placed there. Along with this suprising placement, the fact that she had actually had a trunkload of stuff loaded into the dormitory was also suprising. Unfortunately (something she could have foreseen that finalized Dumbledore's initial claim that the year was actually 1974), no electronics that she had owned had been packed along with anything. Probably the most devastating loss of these electronics had been her iPod, upon which she had almost shed a tear for her lack of her music. On the other hand, she refused to admit her dependency on modern day electronics and decided to search the room exaggeratedly multiple times, hoping she might actually stumble upon her beloved mp3 player. The action was futile and ended in much disappointment.

Evie had contemplated screaming at the Dumbledore figure until he allowed her to go home, but she knew it wouldn't do her any good. The man would manage to stay level-headed throughout the whole situation, never flinching at any of her words she threw at him-- never flinching at an object, probably. It wasn't like she would have thrown an object at him-- or ever planned to, at that. The point was, his ability to stay so calm, regardless of the situation, it would have driven her insane. Then again, maybe she already was insane. Maybe this was a dream. Then again, she felt pain and pleasure. She smelled things. Actually, as much as she hated to admit it, everything fit together in tangible logic. Not dream logic, unfortunately.

So either she had a genius but insane mind, possibly equivalent to that of Albert Einstein. After considering that, Evie shook her head. Evie didn't like thinking of herself as an Albert Einstein sort of figure. So she couldn't possibly be dreaming this up. No, Goddamn, it must have actually been happening.

In spite of all her disappointments in this place, it did benefit her in some ways. The dreams of her mother's vivid corpse had abruptly vanished, with every moment leaving Evie forgetting a detail of viewing her mother's dead body. In some ways, it was reassuring. In some ways, it was terrifying that she could forget something like that. Mostly, it was reassuring. Evie had also been given a lot of time alone, when she wasn't bustled off to Dumbledore's office, where she kept being presented with books that she was advised to read-- none of which Evie had so much as even opened. A woman had come in to fit Evie for robes, something that she had at first been totally against. Evetnually resisting her had just become tiring, so she allowed the woman to eventually present her with an alarmingly overwhelming stack of mostly black robes. A wand had been presented to her, a process that took an entirely too long of time. Evie still hadn't exactly figured out how that whole process had gone, only that she knew she must have tried out at least twenty-five different wands before she was told one was right for her-- at which point she had been completely exhausted and had immediately forgotten the name of her wand.

Evie had expected all of this stuff to be done by today, the first day of September. She had counted on it, actually. She'd locked the door to her dormitory (although that apparently kept no refrain on the people who would so rudely burst into her room anyway), prepared to start reading those books. Supposedly, it was going to let her start practicing _magic_, something she was warned might come rather easily to her. She didn't like the idea of that, but what the hell.

She'd first started with the simplest of spells she could find, spending the first part of the morning actually making tabs on what looked easy and what didn't. After practicing a few of these spells-- _Lumos_ and _Wingardium Leviosa, _to name a few-- she had actually been unable to restrain herself, thus throwing the wand across the room. Dumbledore had been unmistakably right in suggesting that magic might come easily to her. As a matter of fact, it was far too easy for something that she wasn't even sure existed. She began to suggest theories to herself; perhaps she was being possessed by spirits? Perhaps this actually was a crazy dream that was lasting far too long, but was making up for all of the dreams she hadn't been having before coming here? No, she decided finally, it was far too real here.

After being far too freaked out by everything, Evie had simply managed to forget her wand. For all she knew, it had broken into two pieces on the other side of the room, but she honestly didn't care. Instead, she sunk into the first book she found that wasn't about spells. So she ended up reading about witch burnings, and although the whole magic part of it was rather unsettling, Evie somehow managed to ignore it. Actually, the more she thought about it, witch burning seemed like a rather fine thing to read about, given her situation.

Professor McGonagall, a woman who could easily be in her thirties, forties, or even early fifties eventually came into the dormitory, not even bothering to play with the lock. Evie didn't think twice about that, of course. She'd grown used to strange things like that happening over the past few days.

"Evelia?" the woman had said, apparently not in a rush to get Evie to do whatever needed to be done.

"What?" she asked, admittedly in a rude tone. The adults in this place didn't seem to care that Evie hated her real name, and only a few remembered to call her Evie. Professor McGonagall was not one of these teachers. Besides, Evie didn't want to do anything-- she'd been doing enough for the past few days. This was supposed to be done by now.

"I need you to come downstairs with me," the woman said, somehow managing a light smile. "Meet a few people."

"Will they suck out my soul through bendy straws?" Evie incquired, still neglecting to look up from her book. "Or are all of those types of surprises done?"

"Quite the opposite of... sucking your soul out with a bendy straw, I hope," Professor McGonagall replied, although not soundng as amused as Evie would have preferred she had sounded. "If they do so happen to do that, on the other hand, I suggest you report that sort of bevahiour to me or Professor Dumbledore immediately. That's not to be tolerated in a school."

Much better.

"This is a school?" Evie asked sarcastically, raising an eyebrow, though her eyes were still staring at the page sixty-eight of the book she was reading, in an attempt to get that stupid wand off of her mind. "It appeared to me that was more of an abandoned medieval castle that, ironically, had a few people left in it."

"It's only a pseudo abandoned building, if that's what we're referring Hogwarts to as, during the summer," the older woman had concluded, obviously growing annoyed by the whole situation. Evie placed her book on the bed next to her, not bothering to mark her page. She'd probably never pick up the Goddamned book ever again, anyway.

"Summer's over," Evie said, finally willing herself to stand up, "--has been for quite a while, actually."

"You're going to need that," the professor said, pointing to Evie's wand, which was camouflaged between the crevice of the wall and the floor. Evie had to squint at it, just to be sure that it was actually her wand that was there.

"I'mma need it?" Evie asked cautiously.

"Well, no," Professor McGonagall replied, furrowing her eyebrows. "Not _need,_ but I would highly recommend bringing it anyway." Evie cringed at the thought of touching the wand once again, but obliged and crossed the r0om to pick up her possibly-necessary accesory of a wand. In case of evil do-ers who might want to end her life in this so-called school, anyway. Hah. The only evil-doer who might want to end Evie's life in any school was Dar. But Dar wasn't here, now, and Evie couldn't see her being here. Then again, before Evie had showed up here, she would have never been able to have imagined it either.

"Okay," Evie said, straightening up from where she crouched down to pick up the wand. "I've got the death stick," she mumbled, praying to God that Professor McGonagall hadn't heard her address the wood in such an 'insulting manner'.

"But you're going to need your robes," the woman said, pointing to something that was behind Evie. Evie just continued to walk towards the teacher, her eyes still glued to said 'death stick'.

"Robes?"

"Robes," Professor McGonagall repeated, spinning Evie by her shoulders and pointing towards the mass of black fabric that sat perched upon the trunk that had been placed at the foot of her bed.

"Oh," Evie replied, nodding as if she knew that was what Professor McGonagall had been talking about the whole time. She placed the wand on her bed, and slipped her arms into the satin-like black sleeves. She cringed, but tried not to make it seem so obvious. "These robes?"

"Those robes," Professor McGonagall approved, attempting to offer a light smile once more. She turned on her heel, leaving the room. Evie hurriedly snatched her wand off of her comforter, and chased after the woman, down the stairs and through the Gryffindor common room.

"I feel like such a dork right now," Evie muttered, this time not caring whether or not Professor McGonagall could hear her or not. Even if she had heard her, the professor had kindly ignored the remark.

**The Great Hall, Hogwarts**

**September, 1974**

Professor McGonagall had kindly left Evie in an eerie room. The door was hidden by a giant table, where she had spent her last few meals eating quietly. Evie had grown accustom to the idea she would no longer be eating at that table, while she watched people her age, a little younger, and maybe a few older than her, filing into the large room. Now that they were there, she actually felt rather relieved that she wasn't going to be spending her time among the company of the adults. Besdies, maybe people her age could give a more coherent description of what the hell was going on here.

Evie's eyes were glued on the back of McGonagall's head. She seemed to be talking to two people who looked about Evie's age-- one was apparently a boy, the other a girl. Unfortunately, from the distance and all of the commotion going on in between Evie and the party of about three people (who were, quite unfortunately) almost on the complete other side of the room, it was hard to see them. What a big room, anyway. No wonder it was called the Great Hall.

In nervousness (although Evie really had absolutely no idea what she was actually worried about), Evie had begun pacing around the dark room. She started to plaster her bangs to her face, like it would save her life or something. Unfortunately, she didn't have a long enough time to plaster her bangs to her face. Before she knew it, she was being introduced to a beautiful girl with shockingly red hair and green eyes that screamed "LOOK AT ME!" Fortunately, on the girl, it wasn't all too overwheling. And they sure as hell weren't contacts either-- if they were, they were very good ones. The boy was rather tall and lanky-- actually, he looked kind of malnourished. Albeit all of that, he had a pale skin tone that was well complimented by his light brown mass of hair. He wasn't exactly the kind of guy that Evie would kill herself obsessing over, having he be so good-looking and all. On the other hand, this boy was undeniably cute. The kind that a girl would just want to snuggle up with on a couch with, maybe near a fire. Perhaps they could read a book. About witch burnings. All of this would be with friendly intentions, of course.

"Evelia Roderick," Professsor McGonagall said, making point of the fact that Evie had definitely turned around and offered McGonagall with her most undivided attention possible, "this is Lily Evans and Remus Lupin. They are the prefects in fifth year of Gryffindor-- your house, your year."

_Thank you, Captain Obvious,_ Evie complimented the professor silently. Despite her sarcasm towards the teacher, Evie somehow managed to turn on that 'I'm honestly glad to be meating you' guise as she turned to shake hands and smile towards the said Remus and Lily. Although, it really wasn't a guise given as Evie was actually partially relieved that she had finally been offered someone who could be considered her peer to accompany her in this large castle.

"We have no time to waste, you three," Professor McGonagall said, peering out of the door to the room. Evie followed here glance to where the crowds that were entering the Great Hall were slowly thinning. "I don't think Evelia would so much appreciate too much attention on her first day as a student here. So, please, get a move on and she show her around. Can I trust you to do that?"

"Sure thing, professor," Lily said, a giant smile on her face. Remus had a small smile, thought he didn't look too overly excited about this task. Although, before Evie had a chance to try and read Remus' face, the professor had pushed them out into the crowd of student. Lily had obviously taken the lead, although Remus was still standing with the two girls. Evie had a feeling it was only temporary, so he could get back to where he had been sitting at the table. "So you're name is Evelia? It's a pretty name."

"Call me Evie," she snapped back. She hadn't meant for it to sound so mean, for lack of better adjective. In hopes that she could soothe over whatever bad impression she had just given the girl, Evie offered a large smile. "Evelia's a nice name, I guess. If you're bent on sounding like an old grandma or something. But Lily, that's a pretty name too."

"Thank you," she said, seeming reasonably pleased that Evie wasn't all as snobby as her first three words to her had made her seem. There was a short pause before the Remus boy spoke up.

"Your accent; where's it from?" He asked quietly, obviously not trying to come off as rude.

"Accent?" Evie asked, remembering that she was the on with the accent here-- not everyone else. "Oh, right. American."

"Foreign exchange student?" he asked, dodging a foot that was trying to trip _somebody_. Whether that person had had their hopes on some 'tripping Remus', it was hard to tell, since Evie seemed to be a target too, as she stepped over the leg.

"Something like that," Evie muttered in response. She had never really thought of America as 'foreign', but she would let everyone believe that. If that's what they wanted to believe, that was. Besides, she would have never called herself an exchange student in this situation.

"I'll catch up to you later, 'kay Lily?" the boy asked, pausing at an empty seat. Evie made an attempt to look away from the other three boys who seemed to welcome Remus openly to the table.

"Sure thing, Remus," Lily agreed, also seeming to keenly avoid eye contact with the three boys who sat at the table.

"Oi, Evans! Lily Evans!" a boy shouted. Lily made a point of walking away, Evie staying promptly at her heels. She didn't exactly understand why she was ignoring this person. "Lillllllllllll-eeeeeeeeeeeeee! How was your summer, Lillllllllll-eeeeeeeeeee?! Did you finally realize that you want to go on a date with me, Lillllllllll-eeeeeeeeeeeeeee?! When would you like to schedule that, by the way?!"

"I think he's talking to you," Evie told Lily quietly, although part of her was nagging her to just stay the hell out of it. Of course, the big bad 'juvenile delinquent' Evie found she was, she decided to go anything against what common sense told her to do. Lily sighed, rather obnixiously at that.

"Stuff it, Potter!" Lily shouted in response, although her rhythm in step did not falter, nor did she turn to look at the boy. Of course, the name rang a bell in Evie's head. She hadn't ever met a Potter, so she figured now was the best time to look. But no, the boy looked nothing like Daniel Radcliffe with a red scar that kept changing positions on his forehead.

Wrong Potter, she supposed.

"Hey, Lily!" a different voice called out. In spite of the fact her back was turned to her, Evie had this strange feeling that Lily had grown quite restless and annoyed with these people-- voices, by now. "Who's the new girl?!"

Evie fought the urge to look back and see who was pointing her out so rudely, but Lily objected (without meaning to) by grabbing her hand, and pulling her to her left side. "Don't look at them now, don't look at them ever," she stated quite calmly but firmly. "The only one of those four worth your worries are Remus. James is a prat and needs to get some medicine for that giant ego of his. Sirius will break your heart, regardless of whether or not your prepared to give it to him. And Peter-- well, in all honesty, the only thing I see wrong with him is that he worships the ground James walks on." And then, "The ground that boy walks on probably has a bunch of STDs on it, anyway."

Evie laughed at the last remark, although she was not sure what all of that meant. She couldn't help but appreciate some good humour when she heard it. Lily finally pulled her down next to her, a seat where she was surronded by three other girls who seemed to be her age. Evie was prepared to try and be nice, or ask someone if they had ended up here the same we she had. How _had_ she shown up here? Had it been against her own free will? Well, no, not really. Besides-- kidnapping or something of the sort seemed to be a bit farfetched, even for that Dumbledore man.

"S--"

"Shhhhhhhhh!" Lily interrupted her, as if finishing of her word for her. Of course, Evie had not been planning to say 'sh', but rather something along the lines of the word 'so', so they weren't exactly on the same wavelength here. Still, Evie felt obligated to look in the same direction as most of the other kids had suddenly decided to do.

The group of kids, something around eleven or twelve (maybe even younger, for all Evie knew) were walking nervously between the table Evie was sitting at it, and the one to her left (at the direction she was facing, anyway). Was this honestly what everyone had turned to watch? Evie didn't know, although part of her was definitely perplexed as to why a large group of young children had suddenly mesmerized the rather large population of the Great Hall.

"I feel like a pedophile," Evie muttered, knowing full well that a few people were staring holes in the back of her neck, wondering what the hell she meant by that.


	7. The Meal In Which

A/N: I'm not totally satisfied with this chapter. I just couldn't really get into writing it, so I'm sorry. It should have been longer, but I couldn't seem to capture what I wanted to happen and then a bunch of other unplanned stuff was kind of thrown in. If anyone's reading, are you glad it's finally picking up pace? I'm thinking of separating this story into three different ones, just so it's not so long when put together and so that people will actually read it. Ha.

* * *

**Girl's Fifth Year Gryffindor Dormitory, Hogwarts**

**September, 1974**

Evie still hadn't slept. The rising sun wasn't helping. Nor was the fact that her eyelids seemed to be glued open, if that was even possible. All she could really do was lay in this bed that was supposedly going to be hers for the next year, stare at the ceiling, and allow the IMAX theater in her mind to give her a first viewing of this newest movie. The title of it must have been something along the lines of 'The Meal in Which Nothing Really Happened, But Evelia Maegan Roderick's Life Still Managed To Change. Dramatically'. It starred Evie Roderick as the main character. Lily Evans, Gabriella Abercrombie, Mary MacDonald, and Alice Brennon co-star along Evie Roderick's starring role. A cameo of Sirius Black was even included.

The children who Evie had been told to be quiet for had ended up being sorted into different 'houses'-- Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. So there had been a sorting hat, Evie realized, she just hadn't had to wear it. Part of her didn't understand why, yet another part was just glad that no one had forced her to put it on. The humiliation of being the only fifteen year old in the midst of a bunch of eleven-year-olds would have made her uncomfortable-- _dangerously_ uncomfortable, at that. She felt like a pedophile watching them, what would she have felt like standing among them?

Evie hadn't wanted to think about it, hence she had ignored the rest of the sorting ceremony. She tried to think of things to say to the girls who surrounded her, but to no avail. Finally, the meal had started (by this point, she had grown used to the food just appearing merely out of thin air), and the girls who surrounded her asked her questions. She wasn't required to do all of that much. After short introductions, they just began naming off who was and wasn't worth her time. There wasn't really that much chatter in anyone outside of their house-- except for maybe that they she should try and stay away from all the Slytherins. Apparently they had some sort of unresolved business, hence they were big rivals.

Most of the chatter, actually, had been about the group of boys who Evie had already had a run-in with. James Potter, the one who had been calling out to Lily, had been trying to win her over ever since he first stepped foot into the school. As much as Evie knew she should probably pity Lily for having to endure all of James Potter's crazy antics over her for the past four years, Evie couldn't help but find it funny. Although Lily didn't look too happy when that was their topic of conversation, she did manage to let out a few giggles as Gabby, Alice, and Mary began reminiscing on the crazy things James Potter had done in order to try and catch Lily's eye.

Sirius Black, the one who had called out and asked so rudely who 'the new girl was', was apparently a lady's man. Evie had raised her eyebrows at that, looking down towards where the group of boys were. She didn't doubt what they were saying at all-- it wasn't just that he had this irresistible charm about him, but it was also the fact that every girl in the whole Great Hall seemed to look at him for an extended moment at least once, and usually more than that. Unfortunately, Evie was one of those girls. It was just something about the way he looked-- his hair. It was definitely his hair.

"He's not worth it," Gabriella had made sure she knew. "Most guys aren't, but Sirius Black is definitely _not_ worth it." At this, Alice had giggled.

"Gabs here had a really big thing for Sirius," Alice had explained. 'Gabs' glared at her, shifting her attention to her food. Apparently, she didn't want to listen to this story. Evie, on the other hand, the gossip-whore she was, did want to hear the story. "I think it was around the middle of the last year of something. Right Gabs? Middle of last year, Gabby? Right after winter break?" Gabby didn't answer, but apparently Alice didn't need an answer, for she continued, pausing to only take a breath. "Yeah, it was right around Valentine's day.

"So she sent him a Valentine's day card, you know. To see what he would do. They ended up snogging--"

"Pretty publicly, too," Mary butted in. Gabriella stuck a tongue out at her.

"Oh yeah, I think some people got some pictures of it," Alice continued. Gabriella looked horrified, since she had apparently not heard of this before.

"_What_?" was all she had managed to choke out.

"Yeah," Mary replied brightly. "I'm sure if you paid someone enough money, they'd at least let you look at it." And after a moment, "Gabriella Abercrombie and Sirius Black-- quite the couple, you know."

"I _didn't_ know, because we _weren't_ and never _will be_," Gabriella had muttered darkly. Evie, who had been seated between her and Lily was sure she was the only only one could hear it.

"Well, either Sirius said something or Gabs just jumped the gun-- she refuses to get into any details with us-- but she figured they were going steady, you know? A real couple," Alice giggled. "Well, if Sirius said anything, he had forgotten about it. When Sirius was spotted with his next snog-of-the-week, you can imagine that didn't sit too well with good ol'e Gabs."

"Ermph..." Gabriella had muttered, her posture slowly sinking.

"It's reasonable, I guess," Evie had replied, greedily buttering a piece of bread. "If you're not philophobic, I mean."

"Philophobic?" Lily asked, finally butting into the conversation. She had mostly ignored the conversation when it turned to the Marauder's, unless it involved putting in some nice words for Remus.

"'Fraid o' love," Evie replied, taking a bite of the bread. The girls stared at her intently, and Evie took that as a sign to elaborate. She tried to swallow the bread as soon as she could, so she could reply. "I'm philophobic. Have been for quite a long time now."

"Why?" Mary asked, looking concerned. Evie wondered if she was trying to make fun of her or if she was being genuine-- reading people wasn't typically one of Evie's strengths, especially when it came to new people.

"It's a long story," she told them, letting her eyes wander to other things. She didn't like thinking about _him_, not even talking about_ him_. Hell, she'd spared ninety-nine point nine percent of the details for even Dar.

The girls Evie had found herself seated with were either extremely smart or extremely stupid, letting the point drop. After that, they had just began pointless chitter-chatter that Evie had pretty much managed to drown out. She smiled whenever necessary, responding only when a question was asked directly to her.

"So, girls," a voice said from behind Evie once she was somewhere in the middle of the desert course, "I noticed that there was a new addition over here and a certain someone failed to introduce her to me."

Evie had tensed up, this reminding her of a specific time in her life. Thank God, before she had time to reminisce, Lily cut into her thoughts by speaking.

"Sirius, it's only because we don't want her exposed to your toxic reputation," Lily had said, not even turning around to look at him.

"I'm not that bad, am I?" Sirius asked, swaying back and forth on each of his feet. Evie only knew this because she was so aware of his movement, ready to pounce if the need came. This time, she was ready.

"Worse," Gabs had mumbled, keeping her eyes on her plate. Evie had broke into heaps of laughter, forgetting all about the boy-- Sirius, she think Lily had said it was-- that was standing so dangerously close to her.

"Wha'd you say, Gabs?" Sirius asked.

"I said 'You're worse'," Gabs responded, with a sudden burst of confidence, presumably caused by Evie's laughter at her comment.

"I don't think you have a say in that, Gabriella," Sirius replied with a laugh. Gabs ignored him, turning back to her food. "Anyway, as I was saying, I made a side-trip over here to have myself introduced to this new girl."

Evie stared hard into the eyes of Mary, who was looking more like she was giving up on trying to keep her away from him. Before Evie spoke, she did a double-take. Last time she introduced herself to a guy who was potentially good-looking, well, not much good had come out of that.

"I-- I'm Evie," she finally managed to say, once putting up a struggle to find her voice. "Evie Roderick."

"Turn around, would you?" Sirius had asked, in too soft of a tone. Evie wanted not to, but some un-seeable force-- like gravity, maybe-- actually caused her to swing her legs over the bench and look up at Sirius Black. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Roderick," he smiled, taking her hand. Evie flinched, but couldn't bring herself to look away from him. "My name's Sirius Black. I think we'll get to know each other a little better."

And he dropped her hand, walking off. Evie was in too much of shock to do anything, until Gabs finally poked her on the shoulder.

"Don't worry," Alice had began before Evie had even turned all the way around and settled back into her place on the bench. "He does that to every girl in the school when he first meets them."

Some part of Evie had told her she was lying.

Back in current time, however, Evie was no longer dazzled or caught up in a moment with Sirius Black. She was just angry-- angry that someone she didn't know at all, other than the fact they had briefly introduced their selves to one another, had brought all the memories back. It had never been Evie's intention to ever let Lucas cross her mind again. Luc was all a part of her past, all a part of the past that Sirius brought back. They were alike, she already knew. Lucas was good-looking, as was Sirius. They were both obviously very sought-after bachelors who had immediately taken a liking to her. They were also both too nice to be true.

As the morning sun finally cast a glare into Evie's eyes, causing her to squint past the curtains of her four poster bed and look up at the ceiling, she could only make sense of one thing that was going on in her life right now.

Sirius Black was a certified asshole.


	8. I Don't Bite

A/N: So it's almost been a year since I've updated this! It's been a long time, I know, but it's not like I ever forgot about this. (This whole story idea thing has been a work-in-progress in my mind for four years now.) Anyway, I finally decided to start writing again because I've been working on some Evie/Sirius oneshots over at my LJ recently (yeaaaa, Evie/Sirius). But anyway, enjoy, hopefully. Hope you didn't forget anything within the last... year? (if not, rereads are fun amirite.)

* * *

Chapter Eight: I Don't Bite

**The Great Hall, Hogwarts**

**September, 1974**

Schedules.

It wasn't even funny.

This place had schedules? It was a madhouse, people running around with sticks, whispering words in Latin, men that reminded her of Lucas, and it had schedules. Schedules for classes. You had to follow them around, and it was just like any other school. Except it taught magic, which couldn't even-- shouldn't even?-- be real.

"Good choices," Lily said from next to her when 'schedules' were passed out. Evie was too busy staring at her schedule, agape, to look at her newfound friend.

"What?" she asked, her voice sounding more quiet than normal.

"The electives," Lily said, taking the schedule from Evie. "Did you take these at your old school?"

"What?" Evie repeated, eyes scanning over the schedule. "No... I took, uh-- nevermind. No, I didn't take those at my old school." The statement was more of a suggestion than a declarative sentence. _Which ones on there are electives? I don't see Home Ec. or Drama on there, or anything...._

"Well, at least you're taking them here," Lily said, shrugging. "Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Care of Magical Creatures." Evie couldn't help but gape at her schedule. These so-called classes were _electives_? The school board must have been on crack. If there was a school board at all, that was. And they probably did some sort of crazy 'magic-drug'; crack was most likely over-rated here. "Why'd you decide to take them if you didn't take them at your old school? Speaking of which, you never mentioned which school you used to go to."

What was Evie supposed to say, I go to Loyola Academy, not the college, the highschool? Or, rather, went there? Evie had assumed that finally having someone her own age to talk to would make it so much more simple, but she found she couldn't have been more wrong. It made it quite difficult, in fact, and she found herself spitting out the first excuse that made sense.

"I don't know. They seemed interesting," Evie shrugged, ignoring the inquiry about what school she used to go to. Lily didn't seem to buy it, but luckily ignored the fact she didn't mention the name of her old school. "Tell the truth, I took the sheet, looked away, and picked the things my pencil first landed on." Well, she'd done that before freshman year, at least.

"Oh," Lily looked disappointed, as if she had expected some big sort of explanation. However, she guised her disappointment well. Either that, or her next thought had actually pleased her immensely. "Well, what was offered at your old school?"

"Not... the ones that are offered here," Evie said tentatively, beginning to pull at her shirt where it was under her robes. Evie would have found it a satisfactory answer, but Lily apparently wanted much more elaboration-- something in the raised eyebrow said it. Evie's eyes nervously flicked towards the ground. "I, uh--" _Think, think, think, think..._ "Um...."

"The schedules!" someone shouted from behind her. "They're completely outrageous!"

Lily's head turned backwards to see who had said it, and Evie bent her head in a quick prayer of thanks to whatever god had just let her off of that so easily.

"Well, what did you expect?" Lily responded to whoever had suddenly and loudly just rhapsodized about the traumatizing content of their schedules. "We _are_ O.W.L.s students this year."

"Well, someone forgot to send me the memo that this year would be so... I don't know..." whoever was speaking slowly trailed off.

"Horrific? Terrifying? Homicidal?" Lily suggested. Evie finally found it in her to turn around, finishing her silent prayer, to see Mary standing about three feet away from her.

"I like the last one," Mary said, winking at Lils. Evie couldn't help but snort, which was when Mary finally realized that Evie was actually there. "Evie!" Mary announced as if they were best friends, "How are you?"

Evie shrugged. "I don't know. I'm okay, I guess. Little overwhelmed, like you, I guess." Lily laughed at this, and muttered something that sounded vaguely sarcastic. Mary grinned, taking a seat next to Lily. Evie cleared her throat before continuing. "I hope you don't mind me asking, because I feel kind of stupid, like I should know this, but what is an O.W.L.?"

"Ordinary Wizarding Levels," Mary replied nonchalantly, and Evie took that as a sign of her not thinking she was stupid. "There's these and N.E.W.T.s, which we'll take in seventh year. Whatever you get on your O.W.L.s determine what N.E.W.T. classes you take. And then they're sort of like credits for whatever job you might want to have when we graduate. Are you following, because I feel kind of like I'm rambling?"

"I think I'm following," Evie said, actually truthfully. As usual, it was just the magic part that really threw her off from what Mary was trying to tell her about. Magic. Evie mouthed the word towards herself, her mouth hidden by her schedule so no one could see that she was trying to get used to saying the word magic. It was weird, now _knowing_ it was real. Evie had always been a person who had believed in magic, superstition, ghosts, apparitions, whatever you wanted to call it. The fact that she was now part of it was just slightly overwhelming, and she wasn't altogether sure if she was ready for this.

"Whatever," Mary said, Evie saw that she was shrugging in her peripheral vision. "According to m'brother, most of the next _year_ will be spent with the teacher lecturing and telling us about our O.W.L.s."

"Sounds fun," Evie said in a monotone, eyes set on her empty plate while her stomach growled quite noticably. However, she didn't feel hungry. Well, maybe she did, but she was too afraid she would throw up. Evie wasn't sure how long she stared there, before she finally gave in to her begging stomach and finally grabbed a piece of dry toast, and ate it regardless.

"Evans," a voice announced from across the table, that was still somehow void of Gabby and Alice, "I have a proposition to make. I will allow you to tutor me, bring up my grades, in return for your dating me."

"I don't get it," Lily said, keeping her eyes off of James Potter.

"You know," James said, making himself more comfortable. "So I can be seen with you in public. If my grades have a reputation, then you won't be so ashamed to be seen with me inside of Hogsmeade, right?"

"That has _nothing_ to do with it, Potter," Lily said, having to gape at him for his - well, stupidity. Evie had to laugh, looking down the table to her left. Her eyes zoned in immediately on none other's than Sirius Black, and it didn't comfort her any more to realize that he had already been staring at her.

And, what's worse, she just couldn't look away. It wasn't like some magical force, which was the first thought to cross her mind, but it was just because of him. Because he was great looking, because he was looking at her, because he was exactly like Lucas.

And she still thought that she would consider dating him.

She was a horrible, horrible, horrible person - and she knew it. And she hated the fact that she'd never _learned_, because she was a stupid girl. But maybe her idea of him was wrong, and maybe he was nothing like Lucas. As a matter of fact, at that exact moment, she decided she would find a way to make it so that Sirius Black would, in her mind, not even be able to be _compared_ to Lucas - only contrasted.

"Evie, what the hell is this?!" was the expression that finally managed to get Evie out of her trance.

"What?" she asked, just trying to sound interested, although her mind was still with Sirius and Lucas.

"Not a _single_ class with us today! The hell is that?" All of Evie's new 'friends', at least she supposed that's what they were, looked slightly disappointed and sympathetic - Gabby and Alice has finally showed up in the midst of her staring at Sirius. The idea of not having a single class with either of them on her first day sort of flung her into a panic. Immediately, her hand shot out to reclaim her schedule. She stared at it, blankly, although it was sort of pointless without knowing anyone else's schedule. More or less, all that was going through her head was a tangent of worries - mostly, whether anyone would even be willing to look at her and wondering about whoever else happened to be in this first class she had.

"Don't worry," Lily said, keeping her calm. Evie didn't think she looked, or even _felt_ too worried, but as she turned to the red-haired girl, the almost forced reassuring smile proved her otherwise. As a result, Evie felt her cheeks redden , and she had to look back down at her schedule to make sure that no one would see her. She had to block out all of the sound in the rest of the Great Hall - it was fine alone in the castle, without anyone in general being there, but the idea of being with people she didn't know in the castle? Made the whole idea of this being a school twenty times more ominous, and Evie wanted to cry for the first time since her nightamre's about her mother.

"It's not as much as a big deal as you think it is," Gabby's voice said from her right, placing her hand on her back. "I know it sounds super crazy, but people here really aren't as scary as they look. We'll find someone to bring you to classes."

"Thanks," Evie managed to say, suddenly feeling much more confident about the whole thing. She looked up just in time to see Lily flagging over the boy she had been introduced to last night -before the whole Sirius thing. What was his name, Remus, like the guy, Romulus and his brother from that Greek myth?

"I'm not in that class, no," Remus said, after looking over the schedule. "Do you mind?"

"Remus, please, don't -"

"Well, do you want me to help her or not?" Remus asked. Lily sighed, and averted her gaze to the ground, her hand still holding up Evie's schedule, although more absently as though 'I'm only holding it because it just happens to be there'. "James! Over here!"

James Potter and Sirius Black dramatically trailed over to where Lily and Remus were standing, only across the table from where Evie herself was sitting. Evie found herself biting the inside of her cheek when she looked up, only to once again match the gaze of Sirius Black. However, she was too interested and worried about her own scedule - she found herself forcing her eyes to tear themselves away from Sirius, to where James Potter was standing - with horrible posture, one might add - holding her schedule.

"Is this your schedule, Lily?!" James exclaimed. Lily opened her mouth to respond, and Remus smirked a little bit. Evie could actually feel Sirius's gaze tearing off of her to look at James as he snickered a little. "Because, if it is, we have all this whole _schedule_ together! Isn't this exciting, Evans!"

"Stop jumping to conclusions, James," Sirius said. (So _that's_ what his real voice sounded like. Wait - he had a voice to seduce women with, and then a regular voice? Hadn't Evie promised to herself to stop finding ways to compare Sirius to Lucas - to be able to at least find Sirius tolerable?) "I don't think Evans is exactly going to sit here and ask to compare schedules with you. So, who's is it?"

"I say we don't tell him," said the more outgoing part of Evie - the part she thought she'd left back in Chicago. "Just let him _believe_ it's Lily's. The look on his face is priceless."

Lily gave Evie a look oddly distorted somewhere between frustration and amusement, and everyone else just managed to laugh, except for James - who now looked frustrated, as he didn't know whose schedule it was.

"It's mine," Evie admitted, wondering where this confident side of her had suddenly appeared from - most likely she just felt good from having a joke she'd said laughed at.

"Oh," James said simply, although Evie was more distracted by the flash in Sirius's eyes. Whatever it was, it made her feel rather uncomfortable, and she had to choose to ignore it. "No offense or anything!"

"None taken," Evie smiled. "Quite frankly, I'm glad you aren't creepily interested in me like that. You're a lucky one, Lily!"

Lily looked incredibly awestruck, like the fact that Evie had finally come out of her shell was a horrible, horrible thing.

"Just kidding, Lily!" Evie forced a laugh. "If I have my whole schedule with him, then I can just make sure he's not busy trying to make a move on you. I can hurt him, too, if you want."

Lily laughed at this; Evie felt relieved.

"Anyway, is there a particular reason I'm staring at her schedule?" James asked.

Gabby spoke up at this. "None of us are in anyone of her classes. For today, at least. We needed to find someone who could bring her around."

"We can do that!" James grinned. "I'll bring your new friend around, Lily!"

Lily groaned, and Evie began to feel sympathetic. "I wouldn't blame you if you hit your head against the table, now, Lily. Or we could hit his head against the table, cause brain damage, and maybe he'll forget about - wait, _we_ can do that?"

"We!" James exclaimed, halfway between looking insulted and annoying optimism. "Sirius and I have all of our classes together, obviously." (Oh, Jesus Christ, the fact that they were best friends suddenly occurred to her.)

"Oh no," was all Evie could manage.

"I don't bite, don't worry." Sirius was smiling, but his voice was low.

"Yea, he does," Gabby murmured under her breath.

That was the problem. Evie didn't know how to bite back.


End file.
